Safety and communications
on any control panel. This allows the system to display details of all fires, alarms, pre alarms and faults on any panel or repeater located in the building. The interconnection of fire alarm control
panels over a proprietary network is well established, allowing many panels – often located in physically different locations – to communicate between each other using a two core cable (or fire resistant, two core screened twisted pair cable, depending on local legislation). Information from any one panel can be
made available to any or all of the other panels in a network, allowing the user to access all the information on the system from any one panel. This provides the benefits of both distributed intelligence and reduced installation costs.
Large areas
System speed In large, complex sites, it is vital to ensure that the panels – when networked – will sustain adequate performance levels. As the number of panels and input and output options on a network increase, some systems can slow down dramatically. This can seriously compromise safety and reliability. Different systems offer a variety of approaches to networking, which can vary from master-
slave systems to peer to peer standard or fault tolerant networks, as in Advanced’s case. However, as with all systems, the speed at which a fire signal can be transferred around the network is critical to performance. Advanced’s networks can be configured to allow the interconnection of up to 200 panels (nodes) in a fault tolerant configuration. The maximum cable length between nodes is 1.5km, with a total loop length of 20km. The network is capable of withstanding
a single fault between nodes without loss of communications to any single panel. This is all achieved using standard two core, fire resistant cable. Both EN 54-13 and UL 864 specify maximum times for relaying fire alarm signals around the network. For example, EN 54-13: 2005 (E) 4.3.2.1 states that ‘a fire alarm condition on Control Indicating Equipment (CIE) shall be indicated on the main CIE within 20sec’. The typical delay on an Advanced Ad-NeT+ 50 panel network for each panel to indicate a fire from any zone is less than one second, and 3.5 seconds for a full 200 panel system (see case study on p40).
Design and composition Networks can be built using standard fire cable or fibre optics and are often required to cover huge distances. The network design therefore needs to be resilient and function reliably in a dynamic fire situation – where increased network traffic, higher voltages and
FOCUS
www.frmjournal.com MAY 2020
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